


Bitter/Sweet

by Regionalpancake



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, Past Injury, Past Relationship(s), Romance, easy physical affection, just a soft time on the bridge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24412033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regionalpancake/pseuds/Regionalpancake
Summary: Seven and Raffi pass the time during their night shift on the bridge, swapping stories and more as La Sirena glides through warp.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Seven of Nine (mentioned), Raffi Musiker/B'Elanna Torres (mentioned), Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine
Comments: 30
Kudos: 64





	Bitter/Sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asteriski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asteriski/gifts).



> For asteriski who drew [the most beautiful, soft portrait](https://asteriski.tumblr.com/post/619076207118581760/sketch-inspired-by-chapter-4-of-overlap-by) of Seven and Raffi from chapter 4 of Overlap and it made my day. This little fic is by way of a thank you - I hope they like it :)
> 
> This is such a friendly, creative and generous fandom and I feel very privileged to be a part of it, y’all are lovely <3
> 
> Thanks to beta reader Lintila, who is one more spelling error away from starring in a true crime podcast.

_Easy now,_ Raffi winced as she watched a drip of coffee spill over the rim of the mug. Searing across her knuckle and splashing down through the steep, metal stairs from the mess. The OPS officer climbed, more cautiously now, a cup of coffee in each hand and a bar of chocolate held between her teeth.

Seven turned in the captain’s chair, leaning heavily on the arm. “Need a hand?” 

“Yeshf, pleathf.” Raffi tried to speak out of the side of her mouth, teeth still holding the chocolate bar in place.

Seven strode nonchalantly to the top of the stairs. Bending to one knee to meet the other woman at eye level as she climbed. She took a coffee, as well as the chocolate bar from her mouth and leant forward to replace it with a kiss.

“You’re aware you have pockets?” Seven smirked incredulously, rising gracefully to her feet before returning to settle back at the conn. She placed the coffee at the foot of the captain’s chair and unwrapped the chocolate.

“Already full.” Raffi said, absentmindedly sucking the bitter trail of coffee off her knuckle, passing Seven to take a seat at OPS.

Seven watched with lazy interest, and broke off a section of dark chocolate. The glossy surface of the squares flecked decadently with dried strawberry. _Her favourite._ She smiled. _She hadn’t asked for it. She couldn't even remember ever saying she loved strawberries. Raffi was something else._

The OPS officer took a sip of her strong coffee, cradling the clear mug in both hands as she flicked her eyes over the vast amounts of _nothing_ on the ship's sensors. Satisfied, she began instead to unload her pockets with a papery rustle. Creating a small, unsteady pile of colourfully wrapped candy on top of a dull blinking readout.

Seven cocked her head, watching as Raffi plucked one from the top of the pile. “Sweet tooth this evening?”

“I’m always sweet.” She grinned playfully, peeling the orange-and-green paper from the gummy candy and popped it in her mouth. She winced at the flood of sourness.

“You were saying?” Seven teased, chuckling.

Raffi persisted, stubbornly poker faced. She pushed the sour gummy between her back teeth, her tongue trying to escape the violent, bitter tang. Unfortunately that just sent a stabbing sensation along the edges of her jaw. 

“No. It’s fine actually,” she lied in a tone that would be convincing to anyone who _couldn’t_ process her every micro movement, _“_ _delicious.”_

 _Goddamn it, Agnes,_ Raffi thought, cursing the cyberneticist’s taste in candy. _Not taking recommendations from her again! These things are more weapon than food._ Raffi washed the acidic taste away with black coffee that tasted positively honey-sweet in comparison.

The night shifts aboard La Sirena had been difficult to organise at first. Two crew weren’t necessarily required, but it got lonely with one and when the mix was right it was companionable. 

At first the combinations had varied from ‘uncomfortable silence’, between Seven and the Admiral, through to ‘much _too_ comfortable silence’ with Cris and Agnes. Enoch still wouldn’t let the two of them forget about the scratch to the hull caused by grazing an asteroid. (“I’m afraid _‘we were distracted’_ isn’t a terribly appropriate excuse, Captain!”). The crew had got there in the end though, taking turns now on a rota basis, with the ENH on standby in case of rare emergencies. 

Seven and Raffi had been using the night shift as a bit of quiet time. On a cramped ship the size of La Sirena, peace was often hard to come by. Seven savoured these nights. Just the two of them. 

Their easy conversation against the distant hum of the ship's engines.

La Sirena’s systems safely ticking over with the couple’s easy company following her lead.

It was the night shift that had made them really. Taken them from stolen glances and uncertain touches, through the wild and dizzying thrills of the unexplored and into where they now found themselves. New territory for both of them, despite how much it felt like coming home.

Seven smiled as she leaned back, crossing her heavy booted ankles and watching the way the cool starlight light moved, rippling, over Raffi’s skin. 

The xB was well aware she'd got lucky for once. The no nonsense ease between the two of them was a sweet relief from the heated back and forth of one night stands and fragile _Rangers-with-benefits_ arrangements back on Fenris. This, whatever it was, was going well. Raffi was dependable, warm, stunningly beautiful and a genius to boot.

Seven watched Raffi try a second candy, her face pulled into a grimace as the sourness hit.

_A little impulsive_ _,_ Seven thought, _but very sweet._

It had taken a lot to get them together. Both so sure of themselves and unsure around each other, or was that the other way around? There’d been a few false starts. So many longing gazes, lingering touches and bumbled confessions. There had also been one almost heist-like mission from La Sirena’s holos (which honestly would have been successful, had the two women not already been secretly dating for over a month _before_ Mister Hospitality decided it was his time to play matchmaker). But, six months after Coppelius, things were going well between them.

Seven started a basic systems diagnostic before turning to Raffi. 

“Last time you were telling me about you and Picard and your thrilling adventures in diplomacy.” She said dryly with the hint of a smile.

“Nuhuh,” Raffi dismissed, “we did mine last week.” 

She blushed faintly at the thought of Seven’s _enthusiastic_ reaction to seeing the holoimage of her in her Starfleet gold. Those biting kisses, like pips, along her collarbone… _Apparently the xB liked women in uniform?_ However the memory of trying to convince Enoch that it was an ‘emergency’ and could he please take over the conn, made her flinch with embarrassment. It _had_ been worth it though, she smiled.

“Fine.” Seven acquiesced and pulled the little round disk of her personal holoscreen emitter from her leather jacket. Raffi sipped her coffee and watched the gentle green and orange light pick out the xB’s features in the lowered night cycle lighting of the bridge. 

“This is on Voyager.” Seven said, bringing up a fuzzy holo image of a group of officers.

Raffi squinted from OPS but the image was too small.

“Hang on.” She took one last glance at the bland sensor readings and, with her coffee in hand, she crossed the bridge.

Raffi’s fingers drifted lightly over Seven’s knee as she started to settle down, cross legged at the xB’s feet.

Seven half stood up to offer the conn but Raffi waved her back down dismissively. She didn’t mind it down here. Raffi sighed and took another sip of coffee. La Sirena’s huge window looked good from her low viewpoint. Being at warp was beautiful. The shifting lights, the overwhelming sense of speed. So different to the easy, treacle slow pace on this side of the glass.

Raffi put down her cup next to Seven’s and shuffled herself between the xB’s open knees, her back resting against the captain's chair, the other woman’s legs warm against her shoulders.

“OK,” Raffi said, “let’s see this holoimage then.”

Seven leaned forward, her forearms against her knees, brown leather creaking a little with the movement as she passed Raffi the palm holo-emitter. She stayed close, resting her cheek in Raffi’s hair, enjoying the familiar smell of her.

Raffi looked over the somewhat degraded image of what had to be the more senior members of the Voyager crew. She recognised Admiral Janeway of course. Her hair was coppery here, instead of the steely grey she remembered. The then-Captain was sitting on a low mess hall stool, holding up a champagne flute in a toast and beaming. A smiling man, Talaxian maybe, sat next to her holding the bottle a little awkwardly.

Raffi squinted at a couple standing at the back of the group. A man in a red Starfleet uniform, his arms wrapped around a familiar half Klingon woman.

“Torres, right?” Raffi questioned, pointing at the image.

“Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres, yes.”

“Huh,” Raffi shook her head at the distant memory of her ex from her Academy days, Starfleet really was a small town sometimes. 

Knowing Seven had probably already analysed her skin temperature fluctuations, or _whatever_ , and come to a conclusion, Raffi turned over her shoulder.

“We used to date, back in the day.”

“I guessed.” Seven smiled.

 _Called it,_ Raffi thought.

“She got me in trouble, that one!” Raffi said, turning more to look at Seven. 

“She wanted to go ‘somewhere private’ so I took her with me to the Starfleet Archives while I was doing my Tactical Analysis essay. I didn’t know she was stealing data, I just thought she wanted somewhere to make out.” She laughed.

“Seems you were an accomplice to an aspiring Marquis mole inside the Academy.”

“I was a sleep deprived sophomore! With a very nosy girlfriend!” Raffi shrugged. “How was I supposed to know she was a Marquis sympathiser?”

“I think that fact that you’d been granted a security clearance to that archive and she hadn’t could have been something of a clue?”

“Oh come on, I’m not that smart.”

“I disagree.” Seven kissed Raffi’s forehead “Though in this particular scenario… It wasn’t your most tactically sound move.”

“What can I say? I was young! She was hot and mysterious and _wildly_ more intelligent than the rest of my class.”

_Raffi considered that she may, in fact, have a ‘type’._

The OPS officer turned back to the holo image of the crew, _wait… was that Seven?!_

Her eyes widened as she looked to Janeway’s side. There, stood a young woman who looked not at the holo-imager, but instead gazed softly down to her Captain. Blonde hair neatly swept into a tight updo. That was absolutely Seven, the implant proved it even if the rest was so different. The xB looked too young and unsure and was wearing a _very_ revealing one piece.

“What’s with the swimsuit?” Raffi laughed, “They couldn’t get you a uniform?”

Seven wordlessly cocked her eyebrow in reply.

She looked again at the holo image, the giggles starting back up, “Thank goodness you’ve moved on to jackets. I’d never get any work done. Wait,” a thought occurred to Raffi, “you gave reports to the Captain wearing that?!”

“Kathryn didn’t seem to complain too much,” Seven teased, her voice low.

“Oi, hey, a woman could get jealous!” 

Raffi wondered why you’d let someone like Seven out of your sights? _Do all Starfleet Captain’s come with a relationship self destruct button when they get off active duty?_

“Well I’m stumped. What the hell was the point? Other than to give any gay guys on the ship a massively unfair advantage at poker?”

Seven considered this and wondered why she’d never questioned the reason Harry seemed so much better at poker than Chakotay and the others. She dismissed the thought, and turned her attention back to Raffi.

“The biosuit was for practical purposes. After the Doctor removed most of my surface implants I had very little skin, a uniform would have been impractical.”

Raffi’s chuckle stopped, “I’m sorry? Did you just say-”

“I was a child when I was assimilated, so I had limited epidermal surface area. So naturally after the EMH removed most of my surface implants-“

“I-“ Raffi stammered.

“You can’t dermal regenerate skin that isn’t there to begin with. The suit helped me grow it. After the healing had concluded I suppose I was just used to the feeling of it.”

Raffi felt stunned. 

“Shit, Seven, sorry I had no idea, I just thought-”

“That’s fine. I’m aware of what most people thought about me wearing it.”

Seven broke off another piece of chocolate and let it melt on her tongue as they sat in silence.

Raffi lent her cheek against Seven’s knee, wrapping an arm loosely around the other woman's calf and staring at their faint reflection in the window, deep in thought. _Someday she’ll find out something new about Seven and it won’t come with a backstory that makes her want to punch the universe for having the gall to be so cruel, so consistently, to one person._

Seven dipped her head and kissed the soft skin at the back of Raffi’s neck, pulling her from her thoughts.

Raffi sighed, smiling at the unexpected contact, before turning round to face Seven. “You’ve put up with some ridiculous stuff, do you know that?”

The OPS officer shook her head, “I mean of _course_ you know. I just-”

“Yes?”

“I think you're amazing,”

Seven eased off the captain’s chair to join her lover on the floor, smiling quietly and stroking Raffi’s cheek as she continued.

“The things you’ve been though?! With the Collective, and on Fenris, and” she floundered, “regrowing skin?! _Fuck.”_

Raffi leaned into the touch, pressed Seven’s hand against her face, holding her gaze.

“Honestly, honey, you’re the most incredible person I’ve ever loved.”

“I think it’s fair to say the feeling’s mutual.” Seven purred, closing the distance between them with a kiss.

Seven’s fingers ran through Raffi’s loose hair, gently cradling the other woman’s neck as her augmented hand moved round Raffi’s waist.

Seven idly thought about running both hands through those thick curls, but they’d discovered early on that tangled hair snagged against tritanium really smarts. Anyway her metal fingertips were better served tracing smooth, lazy circles at the small of Raffi’s back.

The warp drive hummed distantly from the back of the ship, the gentle tone overlapping for a moment with the low moan that could have come from either of them.

Raffi broke away, face flushed and smiling. Her gaze sliding smoothly over Seven's gently blushing skin.

_What must the pain of it have been like? To be assimilated and then peeled back to raw flesh? To build yourself again, inside and outside?_ Raffi felt a fierce protectiveness swell in her chest. _She’d do anything for this woman. But right now what she really wanted to do was to kiss every inch of her perfectly imperfect body. Raffi knew there wasn’t much sense in trying to erase past pain with present pleasure, but it didn’t stop her wanting to try._

The OPS officer leaned in to kiss the sensitive skin by Seven’s ear as she started to ease the worn leather jacket off her shoulder.

 _“Easy now.”_ Seven breathed against Raffi’s ear, shrugging the jacket back into place. Raffi shivered, she could still hear the smile in Seven’s voice. “There’s still another six hours left of the night shift.”

“Sure, sure.” Raffi whistled out a shaky breath. “Yeah, that’s fine. Six hours.”

She rubbed the back of her neck distractedly and let out a sigh before suddenly tilting her head up decisively. 

“Computer! Activate ENH!”

“But-“ Seven started, cut off by Enoch’s arrival in the captain’s chair behind them. He looked down at the two of them sitting at his feet.

“Now if you care to remember the _last_ time you asked me to step in?”

Raffi cheekily bit her tongue and winked at Seven. The xB laughed, a rare flush creeping at her cheeks as Enoch continued.

 _“_ You both said it wouldn't happen again. Well far be it from me to say ‘I told you so-” the ENH said brightly, folding his hands together on his knees, “though I must admit I’m feeling a _teensy_ bit smug about the whole thing.” 

He smiled expectantly, as if waiting on something.

“Oh!” Raffi realised, _there was way more of Cris in these holos than she sometimes recognised_. “Yes, of course. Yes, Enoch. You Were Right.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear!” He beamed, shuffling back into the Captain’s chair with a little wiggle. 

“Go on then,” Enoch smiled sweetly, shooing them away, “off you go!” 

_Seven didn’t need telling twice._

The xB pushed herself to her feet and, before Raffi could do the same, she eased her hands under the other woman’s knees and back, lifting her effortlessly into her arms. 

Raffi giggled despite herself, winding her arms around the ranger’s shoulders. 

As Seven turned to leave the bridge Raffi gave two enthusiastic thumbs up at Enoch over the xB’s shoulders, mouthing _“Favourite holo!”_ to him as she was carried off.

Enoch squeezed his shoulders up to his ears with glee and returned the gesture.

As the lovers left the ENH turned, vanished away the half empty coffee cups and picked up one of the candies. He sniffed it cautiously, wrinkling his nose at the strong citrus smell. He whisked those away too. Although rather than to the reclimator, the bitter gummies materialised quietly elsewhere on the ship, softly into the pocket of Agnes’ coat, where she might enjoy them tomorrow.

Enoch smiled, stealing a glance at the couple just as they disappeared out of sight, Raffi gazing lovingly at Seven, the two of them laughing.

He settled down at the conn and wished away the discarded wrapper of the bitter candy.

 _No good for Raffi,_ he thought, _she likes the sweeter things._

The sound of the OPS officer’s laughter drifted, distant, through La Sirena’s quiet night air.

_Easy now._

**Author's Note:**

> Agnes’ bitter sweets were borrowed (unconsciously at first!) from Thimblerig’s fic [Green Baize.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798492) I swear some of the things that I think are in the show… are not XD
> 
> So what’s the deal with Seven’s catsuit? Who knows? My understanding is that the rationalisation for the skintight-ness was that it helped with the healing after the EMH removed as much Borg tech as he could. And [this interview](https://trekmovie.com/2012/04/11/jeri-ryan-talks-sevens-arc-and-corset-breast-mounds/) with Jeri Ryan suggests the suit is medical in nature and is “skin regenerative” fabric. Which I like way more as lore than what Seven’s first episode suggests which is basically ‘the EMH plays at tailoring and got weird with it’.
> 
> Anyway, not that any one else is as daft as me... but unless you’re particularly in the mood to feel like you’ve been circus-pied in the face with dessert made largely of electric bees and the abstract concept of loathing: a word of warning - don’t try researching the topic on reddit. Just...don’t XD 
> 
> Finally [here's](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ancestors%27_Eve?file=Happy_ancestors_eve.jpg) the Voyager crew's group photo if you're interested!
> 
> Thanks for reading <3


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